Platinum-certified rapper Doobie talks his shift to rock’n’roll, drug addiction, the long road to sobriety – and that it’s time to be a rock star
By Katharina Moser
It is afternoon at Dee’s Country Cocktail Lodge, and the iconic bar in Madison, Nashville, is unusually crowded for an early Monday afternoon. SUVs and fancy cars are piling into the parking lot hidden behind Palestine Ave and the bar is filling up with artists, musicians, photographers, managers. The who is who of the Nashville music scene is gathering, and a scent of anticipation lies in the air as managers run around, videographers set up their gear and technicians put up the lighting. And then Doobie enters the room, in snakeskin boots and python leather, a flashy shirt and a rocker west over his chest, and the attention is all his. Yes, rock, you heard correctly, as the song the Ohio-born rapper is shooting the music video for tonight is a rock song. His debut rock song, if you will, as Doobie has decided to give his extraordinary musical career a new spin.
Hip hop’s modern-day Kurt Cobain, Doobie has shaped the rap scene with his grungy beats and his unfiltered, true-to-the street lyrics like few before him. But it is not just rap that he wants to be part of his legacy: “I’m working on crossing over into the rock space right now. All my catalog has always been rock‘n’roll-influenced, but it’s mainly been hip hop. So now I’m just doing my own version of rock’n’roll”, Doobie says. “I’m very excited for it and I think it’s some of the best music that I’ve made till today.” While switching genres may sound like a huge step, it is not so much of a stretch for him as it might seem. “My hip hop music was always influenced by rock, I just never took it there all the way. It’s always been there. But then I had this a moment where I thought, fuck it. I’m a rock star in real life. Let’s really take it there and stop bullshitting.“ And that is what Doobie is doing with his upcoming single “Early bird gets the whiskey”, his first rock release that is about to be put out in October, and which all his partners and friends have gathered to shoot an epic music video for. The single is to be followed by an entire album of rock sounds which the artist is working on. “It’s going to be sick”, Doobie says with an anticipatory grin. “It already is.”
“Everything I was going through, I’d write it down. And those poems later turned into raps and songs.”
Doobie
It is indeed all coming together for the hard-working artist from Columbus, Ohio. Just recently, his hit song “When the drugs don’t work” was certified platinum by the RIAA – a major industry success for the underground artist. “We did not even know about the certification when it came out”, Doobie laughs. “A homie texted me. He is one of those dudes who check the certifications and plaques weekly. And he sent me a photo and wrote, congrats, homie. I’m pretty sure I saw my certification three days late”, Doobie recalls with a grin. “That was definitely insane. I knew the numbers were there. But getting the certification means way more, because it makes you realize, okay, this is real. And now I’m the first independent artist coming from where I’m from to ever go platinum. So that feels insane, it’s surreal.” This success feels all the more special as Doobie and his team have climbed to the top all independent, without a big industry player behind them. “My whole career has really been built off just me and my team. Me and my brothers started this together. We’ve literally gone through everything together, the ups, the downs, and we came out on the other side, having more control and more going for ourselves. Because we decided to take the long route and put in the hard work and go through the struggle. It’s paying off now, but back then, it was hard.”
This long journey of hard work started when Doobie was only a teenager. “My dad died when I was five, so I never really got to know him. My mom was in and out of relationships, she had a hell of a lot of boyfriends, and most of them were assholes to me”, Doobie recalls his childhood. “That always brought a lot of anger out of me. And then not having a dad. I was just naturally pissed off because I was dealing with these grown-ass men that I didn’t like, and then I don’t even have my dad. I just felt like I didn’t get a fair shot. That’s where I learned how to channel all my emotions into writing poems. Everything I was going through, I’d write it down. And those poems later turned into raps and songs.”
Doobie has been writing songs since he was very young, which intensified as a teenager. “I was rapping and recording in my city, in Columbus, for $50 on my laptop, just going place to place, recording people.” One day, the namely DJ Hylyte walked into the studio when Doobie had a session with a rap crew he was working with at the time. “Hylyte was the hottest DJ in the city. He was like DJ Drama for Columbus. I already knew who he was. He ain’t knew who I was. I was nobody at the time, but he walked in the studio. Long story short, me and him ended up hitting it off. And since that day, we have just been at it every day.“ Hylyte, Doobie’s manager to this very day, signed him to his independent label SCFMG for the release of his 2013 solo debut single “Ink Me”. Featuring the cult classic “Hopeless”, dark and drug-themed like most of Doobie’s songs, his 2015 mixtape Cocaine Christmvs garnered the rapper a significant online following. 2017, then, brought the release of the self-produced hit “When the drugs don’t work”, which gained millions and millions of streams and established Doobie as the rap star he is today.
“The hardest part is that you have to be willing to go through shit. You have to literally put yourself through some bullshit for real if you really want this.”
Doobie
While his rap career is the pathway of an artist fighting his way through the jungle of the music industry to the top on his own terms, his personal journey is no less turbulent. “I had really bad drug problems, so that was one thing. And then we’re broke, chasing a dream, and that gets hard. There were so many times where people laughed, and they clowned us and they tried to talk bad about us, that what we were doing was stupid, that we’re just broke junkies. Okay, that could have been true at the time, but we also had a dream. The hardest part is that you have to be willing to go through shit. You have to literally put yourself through some bullshit for real if you really want this”, Doobie recalls. The pain of his upcoming as a young adult and aspiring artist is a big part of his artist persona and shimmers through in all of his songs – music whose main ingredient is pain, and its overcoming. “That’s why every artist pretty much self-sabotages. Until the songs pour out. I’m not saying that this is the best thing, but every artist does that. Because we need to be going through something in order to create.”
Just as much as pain, drugs played a vital role in the creation of his music, of songs that sound like echo chambers of the doped mind, a hurried heartbeat, thoughts raving, and a numb mind staring into the infinite dark voids of the soul. “My drug of choice was cocaine. I haven’t done any hard drugs since May 8, 2020. I still drink, but I’m sober from hard drugs for four years now. That was a tough thing to do, because all my music is drug-influenced. When I stopped doing drugs, I felt like I had to learn to make music again”, Doobie recounts. With his decision to get sober, an entirely different struggle accompanied the challenge of sobriety – the struggle of redefining oneself, of creating a new version of one’s life trajectory, and of having the courage to let go of one’s old self. “It was so hard not to be that person any more. All your fans want is the junkie music they know, the drugged-up artist they can relate to, and that sucks sometimes, because you have to give your fans what they want in order to stay alive in this in this industry. It means putting yourself through the bullshit. But on the long run, putting down the drugs helped me so much more, even though it took a couple of years. Now I’m back to myself and making the best music ever. But when I first quit, I didn’t believe that that was going to happen. I was very nervous. I thought damn, this is it”, Doobie ponders. “Then Covid happened. I thought everything’s over. There’s no more rock stars. Everything’s done. I had been on top of the world, and everyone took it away the next day.”
The road to sobriety was all the more challenging as Doobie and his friends had come to see drugs not only a companion but a vital part of their music, style and sound. The drug experience, for a long time, was the essence of their musical expression. “When we first started making music, it was just me and a bunch of homies, and we’re high out of our mind. I’ve done every drug imaginable. We would just mix drugs and do everything. And we used to call our music druggie music, literally junkie music. Druggie music was our term. At this time, no one else was talking about doing the drugs that we were doing. We were literally saying the drugs that we were doing, naming them off and talking about every drug in the book. And a lot of people thought, well, this is definitely different”, Doobie recalls. “At that time in our lives, for us it was just about trying to stick to our guns and be the highest people in the world. And this created a special sound without us even realizing at the time. We were just having fun, high as fuck, trying to find our voices, learning together. That’s what brought the best out of us, and it was those experiences that created it – our sound.”
“There’s no regrets. I’m just thankful I’m here.”
Doobie
Sobriety then, made Doobie question his whole identity as an artist, his capability, even, to make music. Yet, through all the desperation, the self-doubt, and the fight to stay sober and be the unique, ravaging, captivating artist he was meant to be at the same time, Doobie and his team kept working and grinding. And with the grind came the realization for Doobie that his musical genius was still there, that it was not dependent on a substance, but was a part of him. “That meant a lot, because so many nights I thought it’s over. That the music had just been a short era of my life and I needed to find something else now. That I would never have this shine again.” But the shine returned, more powerful than ever. What inspired his decision to become sober in the first place? “I was having a kid. I couldn’t keep doing the same shit I was doing, because it would have been impossible for me to be a father. I was so deep into drugs and partying that I was either gonna die and or just not be able to take care of my kid at all. Those are just shitty circumstances. And I thought, man, I’ve got to get better. That it’s just time to grow up. You know, I’ve had my fun. I’ve done enough drugs for all of us. So now I wanted to see the other side of life, where I can actually remember what’s going on and enjoy it, the way it should be. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve had some of the best times of my life high and on drugs. There’s no regrets. I’m just thankful I’m here.”
Doobie’s past is also an example just of how difficult it is to find one`s way to sobriety, but also that it is possible – all the more if you do it for the people you love. “A year and a half before I actually got sober, I had already been wanting to stop. The drugs were getting to a point where they weren’t fun. I wasn’t really making music no more. I was getting bored with everything. I was angry, just sleeping all the time, high on my mind, just emotional. And when I found out my girl was pregnant, I thought, okay, now I gotta really get it together. And I would try, and I would relapse a couple times”, Doobie says. “But then finally, when my son was about to come, I said to myself, no, now it’s quit time. Before, I had already wanted to, I just didn’t have the strength. But having my son just really gave me all the motivation to not do it anymore.” His kid is now four years old, son to a successful and sober hip hop and rock star. “My son is awesome”, Doobie says with a smile.
By making this decision, by taking responsibility for himself and his young family, Doobie has also inspired countless fans and taken them along on his journey of personal growth. “The crazy part about it is, when I stopped doing drugs, it felt like no one wanted to hear my music anymore. But then after these few years, I started getting my groove back, and now I feel like I’m making the best music in my life. Back then, fans came to me and said they were sick of me talking about sobriety, that they just want to hear me talk about drugs. And those people are coming to me now and say, dude, you’ve helped me through this. That’s where I realized that maybe we went through it together, and that’s the amazing thing about an artist having that real connection with their fan base. I have a real connection with my fans, and I’m sure that my music helps them on an everyday basis. Or they wouldn’t be as supportive as they are.”
“If you want to wear one Jordan and one cowboy boot at the same time, fuck it. People need to stop putting pressure on people and just let them enjoy who they are”.
Doobie
Now, Doobie is ready to be a rock star all the way. “I feel like this new rock album is going to be the happy medium, and I’m excited for that”, he says. He also wants to defy genre boundaries, the categories and tags that are put on music. “It’s just all about how you feel today. You should take a little bit of everything that you enjoy and apply it to your life. You shouldn’t let people tell you that if you do this, you can’t do that. No, all these things help make you you. If you want to wear one Jordan and one cowboy boot at the same time, fuck it. People need to stop putting pressure on people and just let them enjoy who they are”, Doobie says passionately. If hip hop or rock’n’roll, he will remain true to his artist persona. “Different music genres talk about the same shit. They just find different ways to say it. The basic human experience is simply wrapped in a different package”, he says, and smiles.
In Madison, the sun has long gone down and a warm Tennessee night holds the town in its soft arms. Cheerful chatter, the clink of glasses and the metallic pop of beer cans echo through the parking lot. The music video for “Early bird gets the whiskey” is a wrap, the photographers and videographers are happy. And so is Doobie, a glass of whiskey in his hand, an early bird of the hip hop and rock’n’roll industry, ready to spread his wings.
The Wrapper 